The administrative duties abroad belonged exclusively to the magistrates with _imperium_, i.e. in the ordinary course of things to the consuls and praetors, in exceptional circumstances to the dictator.[617] The treatment of provincial administration may be deferred until we deal with the provinces and the pro-magistracy which imperial government created. Here we may appropriately notice the exceptional powers which military command gave to the magistrate over the persons and services of the burgesses, and the honours which it conferred on its possessor.
The first right conferred by military command (_imperium_ in the narrower sense[618]) was that of the formation of an army by enforced conscription (_dilectus_). It was exercised, however, only by the magistrate in supreme command, that is, by the consuls or the dictator, not by the praetor. It was a purely magisterial right, and in the levy of the regular consular army of four legions the consuls were probably independent of any guidance. Custom eventually dictated that, when exceptional forces were needed, the permission for the raising of these should come from the Senate.[619] Within this permission the consuls acted at their own discretion. They summoned all the _juniores_ to meet them, formerly on the Capitol, later in the Campus Martius; and under their inspection the military tribunes selected whom they would and bound the conscripts to obedience by a military oath (_sacramentum_).[620] Although this oath was in form one of personal allegiance to special commanders, was tendered to both colleagues[621] and had to be renewed with every change of command,[622] its primary import was to give the soldier the right of using weapons against enemies, and to change what would have been acts of mere brigandage (_latrocinium_) into those of legitimate service (_legitima militia_).[623] A secondary association with the oath may in early times have been that he who broke it was _sacer_, and that the vengeance of the gods could be satisfied by summary execution inflicted by the general on the offender.[624] The power of inflicting capital punishment for military offences did not, however, need this religious sanction; it was a consequence of the _coercitio_ of the _imperator_, when outside the sphere of the _provocatio_[625] and unchecked by the veto of a colleague.[626] A further right preliminary to the conduct of war was the nomination of the officers of the army—the military tribunes, centurions, decurions, and commanders of every branch. Appointment to all these posts, from the highest to the lowest, was originally in the hands of the consuls; but the tendency of the Republic was to remove selection to the higher military commands from the discretion of the magistrate. In 362 B.C. the creation of six of the military tribunes of the standing army of four legions was transferred to the people in the _comitia tributa_;[627] by the year 207 all of the twenty-four had been thus elected,[628] and the standing military tribunate had become one of the regular minor magistracies of the state.[629] The tribunes for other legions that might be raised were still nominated by the consuls,[630] and sometimes the people gave up its right of election in their favour.[631] In raising supplies most magistrates were dependent on the Senate; but the consul’s original control of the _aerarium_ survived in the right he possessed of ordering the quaestor to pay him any money he required for military expenses.[632]